'It's a vision of yourself': What it's like to be a drag queen in Ireland
Irish drag queens in action: Cork drag royalty Candy Warhol; Dublin queen Davina Devine with Spice Girl Mel C; Cork-based drag artist Mia Gold.
Last month, in her show at London’s Soho Theatre, Panti Bliss asked her audience: “What am I for anymore? Why the fuck am I still in drag?”
The Queen of Ireland, having blazed a trail in a country famous for its social conservatism, has a point — Ireland has finally found its fabulousness.
It was there all along, but these days it’s out and proud. Drag queens abound, following a lineage from Danny La Rue and Mr Pussy via Panti to a whole host of gorgeous beings with brilliant names — Shirley Temple Bar, Candy Warhol, Davina Devine, Mia Gold, Donna Fella, Annie Queeries, Maude Gonne Wrong, Victoria Secret, Anne Ziety, Marian Mary The 6th, and a host of others.
So what’s it like to be a drag queen in Ireland now?
Davina Devine, 40 this year, lives in Dublin with her English bulldog Winnie.
Last December she celebrated her 20-year dragversary at The George with Mel C (“I’m a big Spice Girls fan!”).
Since she began performing in 2002, she’s witnessed the mainstreaming of drag, thanks to two things: social change and digital media.
“Things were very different then,” she says. “No YouTube, no social media, no tutorials, nothing — all we had were Kodak disposable cameras.
Culturally, too, it was a different time.
“I started doing drag for a laugh. My friends run a group in the West of Ireland called Out West, which caters to people who live in rural communities — they run socials, and asked me to come and do something, despite having zero budget. I ended up doing [shows] all over the West of Ireland. Since then, things have just happened organically.
“I love performing, I love being on stage, and I love creating things. It’s changed how I approach my life. When I was a kid I didn’t think I’d be a drag queen when I grew up — I didn’t even know what drag was. It was my creative awakening. My family were so supportive, always have been.”
What about when Davina goes home and washes the makeup off?
“I never publish my name or appear in the papers out of drag,” she says.
Davina has performed with her old friend Vogue Williams, and Joanne McNally; she was the first drag queen to ever perform at the Marquee, which she says was an amazing experience.
“I felt like a rock star — 5,000 people every night!”
She also runs a podcast, , with her friend Victoria Secret, where she has hosted Alan Amsby, aka Mr Pussy.
“Mr Pussy was the first drag queen — he came to Ireland in 1969 and never left,” she says.
“He was Ireland’s highest-paid cabaret entertainer.”
A generation later, Shirley Temple Bar presented , not unlike the late Paul O’Grady’s alter ego Lily Savage doing in the UK.
“I have huge respect for Irish queens,” says Davina. “They carve out their own aesthetic, their own space. And they’re the best craic.”
Candy Warhol, 33, from Cork, is a Renaissance queen.
She set up a drag haus, Mockie Ah, in 2017, has a podcast ( ), performs live and on television, has written a play ( formed part of this year’s Cork Midsummer Festival), and recently launched a drag céilí, which she calls a Gaylí.
“We’ve just done one in Ballydehob, with 60 people Irish dancing in the street,” she tells me. “It was the best fun.”
Candy has drag in her DNA. Literally — her grand uncle was the legendary Danny La Rue, one of the highest-paid entertainers in the 1960s.
Your granny would have loved his impersonations of Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Zsa Zsa Gabor. The word queer was never mentioned.
“The majority of his audience was straight,” says Candy. “And even though he came out in later life, he always made it clear that he was a female impersonator. When he went on the Late Late, he’d be in a tailored suit.”
There was a clear delineation. “It says a lot about the time.”
Candy has been performing for 13 years. “It’s so intertwined with who I am,” she says.
Badly bullied at primary and secondary school, which left her socially mute, she explains how “drag allowed me to find my voice. It gave me confidence to present myself in everyday life.”
Which is why she created Mockie Ah: “I wanted to create a safe space to perform, for people to be themselves.
“When we do shows in places like Ballydehob or Westport, we don’t just get young people coming to talk to us, but people in their 60s and 70s.
“Mia Gold — my right-hand queen — and I run Mockie Ah, where we offer advice on wigs, make-up, costumes.
“And character development — I ask people who they want to be on stage. I think the best drag involves a fully-fledged character.”
She offers time, support, and advice to fledgling drag queens “because that was given to me”.
Mia Gold, 28, is from the Azores, and came to Kerry in 2013 to work as a chef.
“There weren’t many drag queens in Kerry,” she deadpans. “I went out in drag there, to small-town pubs where all the farmers went.”
Moving to Cork in 2017, she found her tribe, and now works in drag full-time, doing weekend performances at Chambers, and running Mockie Ah with her friend Candy.
“There were lots of people interested in drag, but didn’t know how to get started,” she says.
“Thirty people applied for 20 places, so we got funding, and ran a 10-week course. This year we’re going to do it again — we still have a waiting list.”
Like Davina and Candy, Mia experiences drag as liberating.
“It’s a vision of yourself, so empowering and freeing,” she says.
Despite drag being so synonymous with joy, freedom, creativity, self-expression — and crucially, humour — in recent times a small group of right-wing extremists, emboldened by the backlash against drag in the US, have become increasingly threatening in Ireland, both online and IRL.
“I’ve felt it,” says Candy. “There’s always going to be racism, homophobia, transphobia, but last summer was my first time being assaulted and intimidated, at Mayo Pride with Panti Bliss and Annie Queeries, while we were doing a Drag Storytime — there were a group of protestors in our faces, really intimidating, frightening the children.
“We’d been having a lovely time until that point. It’s mind-boggling. What these protestors were saying to the small children was so sexual. It was so disturbing and frightening — yet these people were saying that we were the ones traumatising the children — by reading them a fairytale.
“This was my first time seeing aggressive protestors. There are often religious protestors, but they’re peaceful. So it’s made me quite anxious.”
Candy describes another Drag Storytime invaded by a handful of aggressive protestors recently in Killarney — again scaring the children, as well as the queens.
“They were physical. Sticking cameras in the faces of young queer teens, mocking them. It was horrible to watch.” Davina has also experienced hate and bigotry, online.
“Lots of Irish flags being bandied about by so-called patriots,” she says.
“I did a Patrick’s Day photoshoot draped in an Irish flag because I wanted to say: ‘I’m Irish too, and I’m proud of how far we’ve come.’
“Then the last Pride was the biggest, the best — the day could not have been better — and it made me realise that although those bigots will always be there, their voices are not as loud as they think.”
“My first Pride was in 2007,” says Candy. “What has long been a party now feels like it’s going back to its origins as a protest.”
Mia adds: “We need to remain unafraid, and be who we are — it’s empowering to see people just being themselves.
“We’re not doing anything hurtful to anyone. Nobody wants hate directed to them — we just want to live our lives. And we don’t want anyone to dim our light.”
- As part of Cork Pride, Mockie Ah will be running a series of events, including Drag Brunch at The Dean (August 5) and the annual Mockie Ah Pride Weekender (August 5 and August 6) at Cyprus Avenue, featuring special guests N-Trance, Booty Luv and RuPaul’s Drag Race stars Victoria Scone and Just May.
- Mia Gold will be in charge of bingo at The Gay Project on Tuesday, August 1, and will appear on the main stage after the Pride Parade on Sunday, August 6.
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